In digital broadcasting (e.g., digital terrestrial broadcasting, etc.) of standards such as Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB), Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC), and Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB), a viewer can view programs only, skipping commercials (CMs). For example, a viewer skips a CM by switching to another channel during the CM time or fast-forwarding the CM during a replay. However, when the current business model is taken into consideration, if the viewers skip CMs, it is expected that sponsors stop funding for program production, which may result in a decrease in production of good programs.
For this reason, a technique is disclosed that causes a recorder/player to record whether a CM is displayed correctly and, if it is not displayed, prohibits the recorder/player from deleting the recorded program. Moreover, another technique is disclosed that allows, for example, a Video On Demand (VOD) system to insert CM-related information when a main program is transmitted. In this technique, a user terminal stores both the main program and the CM-related information in a storage unit. If a CM is skipped, the user terminal reads the CM-related information from the storage unit and displays both the main program and the CM-related information.
However, the above conventional technologies have a problem that, regarding digital broadcasting, a receiving side may fail to display specified information related to specified images. Regarding digital broadcasting, if for example, a viewer switches to another channel during a CM time in real time, the CM or the CM-related information is not displayed by the receiving side. In a situation where channels are switched in real time, the CM and the CM-related information that is inserted into the main program are not stored in the storage unit; therefore, the conventional technologies cannot solve the above problem.
The above problem will arise with not only information related to a CM. The same problem also arises with information provided for a viewer as a piece of information different from the main program, information that is likely to be skipped by a viewer, such as a sponsor introduction section of the program (screen labeled as “sponsored by”), an event announcement section of the program, scenes of a drama program where a sponsor product appears, and notification that the next program will start behind schedule because of the current program being extended, and some other specified information related to a specified image.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-266482
Patent Document 2: International Publication Pamphlet No. WO 2003/079690